Mitigating Offense

Acts 21:17-26

¹⁷When we had come to Jerusalem, the brothers received us gladly.

¹⁸On the following day Paul went in with us to James, and all the elders were present.

¹⁹After greeting them, he related one by one the things that God had done among the Gentiles through his ministry.

²⁰And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law,

²¹and they have been told about you that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children or walk according to our customs.

²²What then is to be done? They will certainly hear that you have come.

²³Do therefore what we tell you. We have four men who are under a vow;

²⁴take these men and purify yourself along with them and pay their expenses, so that they may shave their heads. Thus all will know that there is nothing in what they have been told about you, but that you yourself also live in observance of the law.

²⁵But as for the Gentiles who have believed, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality.”

²⁶Then Paul took the men, and the next day he purified himself along with them and went into the temple, giving notice when the days of purification would be fulfilled and the offering presented for each one of them.

One sure way to end any conversation before it has even begun is to offend the person with whom you want to speak. The frustrating thing about that is that sometimes you don’t even know you’ve caused offense. In our culture of instant information we can be ruined before we’ve even opened our mouths via Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. People are quick to form opinions; especially in the negative.

Paul has come to Jerusalem. He has been warned that this will be a dangerous place for him but he is determined to observe the Passover in Jerusalem and he has decided it is worth the risk to be there. The Church in Jerusalem led by the James, the brother of Jesus, welcomes him with open arms and rejoicing in the stories from his life on the road as a missionary. It must have been a fantastic few days of worship and celebration. But there is a down side. The Jews in the city are spreading the rumor that Paul teaches a denial of Jewish heritage. He in fact does no such thing. Instead, Paul tempers what he teaches to the make-up of the crowd. The message itself never changes but his presentation might. Paul was a master at meeting the propriety sensibilities of the crowd. In 1 Corinthians he even talks about that choice.

1 Corinthians 9:20

To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law.

In order to prove his stance on his own heritage, Paul engages in the completion of a Nazirite vow with some fellow believers. This comes at a fairly substantial cost to Paul financially. But that is of no matter to him and he proves that he himself is still faithful to his heritage as a Jew. There is no cause for offense here.

In the U.S. we may not be so accommodating. We have a tendency to lean in on our own “rights” rather than seek the comfort of another. But Paul stands as a shining example of setting our own rights aside in order to see to the comfort level of another. Now here’s a spoiler alert – it doesn’t work very well and Paul still gets arrested. But his goal is always to keep a pathway of communication open for someone who may not think the way he does. It’s a great deal easier to show love to someone who isn’t in a bitter dispute with you over something minor. I have to admire Paul’s commitment to the others and his unending ability to set his own rights aside. He takes his cues from Jesus who most certainly set aside His glory to suffer the punishment for our sin. In fact Jesus’ willingness to become human at all is the quintessential example of giving more consideration to the needs of others than you give to yourself. Fortunately, we haven’t been asked to die for the sins of others, so anything else we’re asked to set aside is minor by comparison.